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(This is a photograph of three chicks hatching in an incubator. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

All startups are alike--and that includes social enterprises

Well, sort of.

Depending on the business, founders pretty much all need help fine-tuning their plan, figuring out the best way to market, creating their technology platform. Or maybe they just want a place to work that's not in a Starbucks.

But unlike other startups, social enterprises also have to wrestle with all sorts of other pesky issues--determining how to measure the success of their non-financial goals, say, or what type of investors might want to take a chance on them.

That's why it's so important to have incubators and accelerators catering to the special needs of social enterprises. Sure, there are tons of new incubators out there. And every time you breathe, it seems like there's a freshly minted Y Combinator-style venture accelerator offering three-month boot camps and investment in tech startups.

None of them, however, are remotely useful for the mission-driven company with all those other concerns--and little chance of garnering the type of returns typical of the usual venture-accelerator groomed tech firm.

Enter Panzanzee, a new, ambitious hybrid in Chicago. Part incubator, part accelerator, part co-working space, it aims to provide a one-stop shop for fledgling social enterprises, according to founder Amanda Britt.

To that end, Pananzee will offer a panoply of services. There's a co-working space for startup founders, as well as attorneys and others who want to provide services to social entrepreneurs. For the moment, they're working out of a 2,200 square-foot space. But Britt hopes to move to a 15,000 square-foot location later in the year.

Then there's something called "Raise the Barn", in which a company founder speaks before a group of 30 or so professionals, looking for guidance in one particular problem area. After that, the person can meet with a smaller group to drill down further into how to fix the problem.

Eric Fenton, founder of two-year-old Chicago-based Ignite Progress, was one of the first startups to go through a Raise the Barn late last year. Fenton formed the company to provide test prep and college readiness services to kids in underprivileged neighborhoods. But, he was only breaking even serving his less-privileged clients, while making money on the other, wealthier ones. How then could he fuel long-term growth?

At a November Raise the Barn, he presented his dilemma to about 35 professionals. After a two-hour discussion, the group came up with a consensus: He had to put his social goals on the back-burner temporarily and focus, for the time being, on well-heeled families in the North Shore, who could afford to pay higher fees. By doing so, he could build his brand, thereby making it more likely to attract the attention of foundations and nonprofits interested in his social goals.

As for other services, Panzanzee will provide in-depth, Y-Combinator-style business consulting help to a select group. Britt figures she'll spend four weeks or so "dating", before deciding whether to take a 5% to 10% equity stake in the company and continue working with it. She still has to iron out the specifics, but she thinks she and her staff will spend more than the usual three months, since social enterprises, with their more complex challenges, may need more time to get off the ground. If the company doesn't make the grade, she may still help the company founders fine-tune their strategy.

That's not all. Panzanzee will provide business consulting services. And it will help form groups of entrepreneurs who will meet weekly or monthly to talk about challenges they're facing.

None of this stuff is free, of course. For the co-working space, for example, Britt is asking for donations from tenants for now, but in the summer she'll start charging by the week or day. For the peer group meetings, there will be a monthly fee.

Panzanzee isn't the only one providing such hybrid services. For example, last month, Good Company Ventures in Philadelphia, which runs a venture accelerator for social enterprises, merged with a group called Green Village, which, among other things, provides incubator space, to form Good Company Group. It also has a three-month mentoring program for "folks with the germ of any idea," says Garrett Melby, managing director of Good Company Ventures.

Melby, by the way, has some interesting ideas about using venture accelerators to build social enterprises able to attract venture capital and scale quickly (okay, I just used jargon I hate). More about that in a later post.